Before the trip, I did my homework and selected a handful of hikes I wanted to do and created an itinerary starting from the farthest island (the longest drive) and moving west from there. Later I would make adjustments to it as I learned the weather can be quite different in different islands. With that, my first hike was to Nakkurin which I believe is the northernmost point of the Faroe Islands. It’s also located in the farthest east island you can drive to and at the of a road. Yes, it might sound a bit extreme but in the Faroe Islands almost everything is at the end of something. Either way, the drive there was long but interesting. Just because of the way the Faroe Islands are, you have to drive around to get anywhere unless there’s a tunnel, and there are a lot of those, some of them even going under the sea which was fascinating. Some others (tunnels) were more stressful as they were single line and I had to quickly learn the “rules of the road”. On those tunnels only one direction of travel must yield to the other. Just to get an idea, here’s the map for my first drive. All those blue lines are tunnels.
So, I finally got to the trailhead locate din a remote village and right from the start I notice stark differences from what I’m used to when it comes to hiking. The main thing is the trail is not well defined and only marked by either blue plastic pipes buried in the ground or cairns. Still, it looked pretty amazing from the start. After passing a gate, which is common in the Faroe Islands just to keep sheep on one side, I started heading up on farm land were walls were built using rocks from the hill. Just looking at that I can only imagine how long these have been here and how long they took to build. Right in front of me the mountain looked like a huge amphitheater. As you climb the side of these mountain on a straight line, the views of Vidareidi get better and better. From higher up it’s very interesting to see how the greenest is right were the village is and how it connects two islands.
The trail makes a slight turn up and heads straight up towards Villingadlsfjall which was like stepping into Mars. I was right below the clouds, so the sky was a grey, heavy mass while the ground and everything around me was orange and rocky.
Even with the fog cairns were easy to spot as they were many and not too far apart. Navigating was easy. Around me I could only feel the weather and hear birds flying all around. It was surreal. At some point I knew I was getting closer to a cliff and a ghostly red image appeared out of nowhere. It was a fellow hiker from Portugal with whom I spent some time talking and sharing our experiences since he was doing a very similar trip as mine but all on boat and spending a lot more time in each place. After that He took off and I saw him slowly disappear in the fog.
I continued and got to a spot where the mountain drops to a narrow catwalk. At first it made me nervous as I couldn’t see how far down was down, but after a few minutes I decided to take a big breath and just cross. As I did, I saw ghostly images of birds flying very close to my head and a fain blue way down on both sides. Luckily, I don’t suffer from vertigo, so I hanged there for a bit and took some pictures
I went a bit further, as further as I dared, and that’s were I finally saw the birds. This area is known for that and even though I could only see a handful flying and nesting on the step rocks, I could hear dozens flying below in the clouds.
As I was turning around and starting to make my way back, some of the clouds lifted momentarily and I was able to get a glimpse of the ocean below me. It was far down so I was glad I was getting back on firm terrain. The hike back retraced all my steps but as I did, I got a different angle view of the amphitheater at the beginning of the hike and had to stop to take some panoramas.
As I walked the final steps to the car, I knew this week would be filled with the most amazing and unique topography I’ve ever seen. It made me happy to be there.
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